Inclusion
February 24, 2017
School sports enjoyed its highest public profile in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This was before competition from televised college and professional sports and proliferation of youth sports programs and myriad entertainment alternatives. But school sports has its greatest reach today. This is the era of inclusion.
This began with the near simultaneous expansion of opportunities for boys in a greater variety of sports and the reintroduction of similar athletic opportunities for girls.
The increased focus on the junior high/middle school level and the new opportunities for 6th-grade students to participate either separately or with and against 7th- and 8th-graders are major developments in this era of inclusion.
This era includes exploration of opportunities for students with an ever-widening understanding of physical, mental and emotional conditions that challenge students’ ability to participate in highly competitive and regulated athletic programs. It includes accommodations for students with documented changes in gender identification.
This era of inclusion includes reexamination of rules that limit students’ access to school sports while understanding that much of the value of school sports is a result of the rules for school sports. We know that if we lower the standards of eligibility and conduct, we tend to lower the value of the program to students, schools and society.
This is really the best time ever for school sports. It’s just a lot harder to operate today than 55 or 60 years ago.
Early Learners
January 26, 2016
The good news is that the minimum number of pupil instruction days required for public school students in Michigan increases from 175 to 180 for 2016-17. The bad news is, Michigan public school students are still sitting in the back of the school bus.
The U.S. is in the lower half of the world’s nations in the length of school year for secondary school students, and Michigan is in the lower half of U.S. states in the length of school year. So just about anything the Michigan Legislature would consider to facilitate earlier starts to the school year as well as longer school days and weeks of instruction would be good for today’s students and our state’s future.
Among bills now pending in the Michigan Legislature is Senate Bill 567 that would remove the prohibition on public schools from beginning instructional days before Labor Day, except that classes could not be held on the Friday before Labor Day.
Some will be critical because this could put classes in conflict with double session sports practice days and large, all-day cross country, golf, soccer and tennis tournaments that are now common in Michigan school sports in late August; but these so-called conflicts would have positive effects:
These “conflicts” would tend to reduce the number of days of two-a-day practices that are much less in favor today with increasing attention to the health and safety of student-athletes.
These “conflicts” would tend to reduce the frequency of students playing in contests before they have attended any classes, which is far from ideal philosophically and a frequent cause of practical problems – including participation by ineligible students and resulting forfeits.
Students are engaged in school sports, marching band, cheerleading and other school-related activities throughout most of August, and they are much more eager learners then than later in the school year. Schools should be allowed to let them learn in the classroom then, not just in extracurricular activities.